WENN

A new study has found that when women are exposed to graphic pornography without any context they experience the same physical revulsion caused by images designed to induce nausea. Dr. Charmaine Borg and her colleagues at Groningen University, in the Netherlands, observed 20 healthy women with a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) machine as they were shown a variety of images including neutral depictions, nausea-inducing images and images of sexual penetration.

The context of all pictures was kept to a minimum, and no faces were included. The study found that there was a strong overlap between the areas of the brain activated when looking at the nausea-inducing images and the pornographic scenes.

Borg likened the response in females to the reaction to being exposed to horrible food, where the smell is off-putting enough to ensure it is not eaten, explaining that women's bodies naturally "go on the defensive" when looking at porn out of context. Borg says this might be explained by women's increased susceptibility to infection in comparison to men.